First Chinese Family in WichitaoThen in 1980 I moved to Wichita to pastor the West Free Church, which First Free has started…

oMy mother and father, Jim and Arlene Liu came to Wichita in 1940.

oAs my father worked for Beech Aircraft, they moved from New York City and decided to start their family here.

oAnd at that time, there were several other Chinese men working but there weren’t couples, um, there weren’t any other married couples.

oSo, they were considered, I think, one of the first Chinese couples to live in Wichita, Kansas.

Every Invitation Matters

oMy mother was invited to a bible study by a friend and it just happened that this bible study was led by her aunt; a woman named, uh, Ethel Dickson.

oAnd my mother heard The Word and The Gospel and she became a Christian through that bible study.

oAnd she attended that bible study, um, throughout decades later.

oIn fact, I attended that bible study with her as a child.

oUm, but, at that time, you know they didn’t really have a church, and they ended up thinking, “Well, let’s try out the First Evangelical Free Church.”

oThe original church was located at 10th and Oliver here in Wichita… and… they… decided to visit.

A Woman in Faith can be Influential

oAnd she took my brothers, uh, my two older brothers and my sister to church.

oI wasn’t born at that time yet, and uh, but then, after I was born I started attending as well.

oBut my father was not a Christian, they believed in Buddha, you know, they were Buddhists.

oAnd because of that, you know, it was a whole, they did not believe in God.

oSo, it took… it took a while for them to understand, especially my dad to embrace and to, um, accept the Lord as his Lord and Savior.

oThen he became a Christian though, and about, uh… probably a decade later after she had been attending.

oBut I think he saw the testimony of my mother, and then the rest of us going to church and he saw that… that there was something to this, “being a Christian” and that there was a god.

A Testimony of a Taxi Driver in a Trip Touched the Heart

oThrough the testimonies of… of a couple of people, one was a taxi driver who’s shared the gospel with him.

oAnd so, he became a Christian, became involved in the Church, and realized that his faith was more important and that he could, um, share the gospel and live his life in business and, uh… but as a Christian.

§I came here in 1972 t he first time and I met the Liu family, Arlene and Jim Liu

§Arlene had come to Christ in the very early ‘50s and uh… became a part of this congregation before Jim even became a Christian.

§Um… Arlene and her daughter, Yolanda, were members of the church I suppose as early at 1951-52

§Jim later became a Christian long before I knew him and by the time I came to Wichita, Jim was a real solid member of the church.

§He became an elder early in my time and served very faithfully as Chairman of the Elder Board.

§He was an excellent elder.

Dedication in Serving

oHe believed that the value of service and my mother, especially, did that as well and so, they both, uh… had various jobs within the church and were very helpful in wanting to not only give of their time but they wanted to also give of their finances, and God blessed them abundantly.

oAnd so, they were able to share those blessings with others.

§Jim had, uh, quite a few financial resources and was a major supporter of the church.

§When this property was purchased, Jim helped to, uh, finance that and when the building was built he was probably the major contributor to it.

§He was the um, Executive Vice President of Beech Aircraft Corporation in charge of engineering.

§And um, he continued to support the church very faithfully through most of my ministry here.

Take Root Below and Bears Fruit Above

oIt could have been 50 years… it could have possibly been 50 years of that uh…

oBecause actually my mother was one of the first, uh, not the first but she was one of the first families that did attend the Free Church there on 10th and Oliver.

oShe attended up until she was, uh, you know, up until she was disabled and she had… had fallen and she just couldn’t make to, uh, church anymore.

oBut I think that was… it could’ve been close to about 50 years.

oWe all did, we always went to church and when the church doors were open we attended church, Sunday school and church and Wednesday night services

oAnd there, many a time when, uh, you know, our lives definitely did revolve around church.

§But he was, um, very influential in the founding of our church.

§He was also very active in our denomination.

§He would attend every district conference, every national conference, he was a strong supporter of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and Trinity College.

§He was a really key individual.

oAnd so, I began to learn about Mr. Liu and his involvement here at the church… um… significant… support of the church financially…

oSignificant support of the Trinity College and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

oUm… and just how important he was to First Evangelical Free Church really being a strong church

oUm… then, when I came on staff here in 1998 is probably when I first would have met him personally and his wife as well and… she lived longer than he did

oUm… I… I would imagine that he was on… whether it was an Elder Board or whether they called it the Deacon Board he served in leadership

oUm… he… he was just a solid business man and generous.

oUm… he is, well I guess you wouldn’t call him a founding father but he… he was just so significant in the life of First Evangelical Free Church and the Evangelical Free Church nationoAnd I’ll just read some of this, “The elders of First Evangelical Free Church commend our brothers and sisters in Christ of the Chinese Fellowship for their love of the Lord and ministry for him. We acknowledge their faithful commitment seen in their Friday evening fellowship, their heart for sharing the gospel through context established in their Sunday afternoon activities, their initiative in beginning a monthly Chinese worship service.”

§He also attracted in some other Chinese families to our church

§Ken and Molly Hou, both of whom have passed away recently, uh…

§And then Richard and Anita Wong, uh… a young couple compared to the Lius, uh… started attending and attracted other Chinese people to our congregation

§I think Jim made it, um, possible for Chinese people to see that First Free was a welcoming place for them; that they weren’t limited because they might have been a… an ethnic minority but they were fully accepted into the congregation.

§So, he blazed a trail there, I think, that was very important.

Be Blessed so that we can Bless Others Blessed Beyond Measure

oJim Liu was a quiet, dignified man, um… not given to public speaking but very effective in the background.

oAnd um, he uh… had the confidence of our congregation. When he did speak, people listened to him.

§I think he did think he could influence others.

§I think that he was a very quiet man uh, but… he felt like his testimony through action… through the way he lived, through um, uh… what he did, how he even, maybe spent his money, how he, uh, gave his money, um, would be an influence on others.

§And it did, it was seen, and it was reflected and we, you know, we were blessed beyond measure.

Chinese Bible Study Fellowship 1980-1998

§Speaking Chinese

How it got Started

oOur leadership team did not set out to establish a Chinese ministry

oThe Chinese friends came to our church and we responded to their needs

oI would say that was how all of our church plants got started

oWe didn’t set out to established West Church or East Church or… what we did was respond to the people God had brought here

oThe reason we started West Church, for example, is because there were people driving a long distance to First Free from the west side of town and we thought, “What is the best way for those people to reach their own community?”

oIt would be to establish a church for them and so we did that

oThe same for the people in the far southeast part of the city, establish east church

oAnd that was kind of how it happened with the Chinese congregation

oThese people were coming to First Free because of people like Jim Liu or Richard Wong and they were growing in numbers and so we responded to their needs

Start a Chinese Church

§Chinese speaking

See the Needs and be Sensitive to God’s Guidance

oI remember when I first came back in 2004 there were quite a few Chinese people who were attending First Free and some of them didn’t speak English very well.

oSo, they were listening to the sermons with translation being done.

oWe actually built a translation booth and provided earphones for the Chinese people and one of our Chinese people would listen to the sermons and do simultaneous translation

oIn fact, every Sunday for several years I would provide a manuscript of my sermon to the Chinese translator and they would translate from that booth so that the Chinese people could understand

oWell, it continued to grow, and we thought, “Why make them listen to a translation when we could hire a pastor who could speak directly to them in their own language?”

oI would guess there were 50 people, uh, no… we didn’t have that many people listening to the translation, maybe, uh… a dozen people were listening

oBut family members of theirs were also attending who could understand English but maybe it wasn’t their first language and so it would still be easier for them to hear the sermon in the own language without it being translated

oTranslation is never the best way to listen because something is always lost in the translations

oAnd so we thought, “Let’s provide a first-hand sermon from a Chinese pastor speaking Chinese.”

oSo, again, it happened not because we set out to have a Chinese congregation but we were responding to what God was doing in our Congregation

It’s Official

§Speaking Chinese

Meeting Document

oIt wasn’t until 2005 that we really had significant discussions about, “Should this move and actually become a church within First Free?”

oYeah this is the meeting notes May of 2005. Discussion within the Elder Board with Chinese leadership

oThe title of the document is, “Relationship of Chinese Fellowship in First Evangelical Free Church.”

oThere was a discussion, um, with elders and some of the leaders of the Chinese Church

Communication & Relationship

§Speaking Chinese

oSo that had happened back before 2005, “and their priority given to weekly prayer each Tuesday evening. We consider your presence and involvement at First Free to have a very positive impact on our congregation. We certainly have benefited from the testimonies of salvation that have been shared in our service during baptism time, we have enjoyed participation of the Chinese choir during worship, we are drawn to the passion with which you involved yourselves in prayer. Um, we are all one in Christ, um, we believe that God graciously allowed us both the First Free family and the Chinese fellowship, the privilege of personally seeing and participating in that oneness of Christ.”

o“Because it is the state admission of the Evangelical Free Church of America to multiply healthy churches among all peoples, we consider ourselves uniquely blessed to be in relationship with you, our Chinese brothers and sisters in Christ. As you consider God’s future direction for your continued ministry, we want to express our desire that we further build a mutual relationship that facilitates remaining a part of First Free’s family.”

o“As discussion progresses and the consideration of planting a church, we believe there are distinct advantages for you to remain here.”

o“First, we already have a relationship of mutual respect and benefit.”

o“Second, we have adequate facilities and, the Lord willing, we will have improved facilities in the future. To lease facilities elsewhere or especially to build facilities would be very expensive and would leave less funds for actual ministry.”

o“Three, we have excellent youth and children’s ministry that we invite you to partner with in serving your people. You would not have to immediately commit to a full contingent of leadership to build these ministries.”

o“We believe that the significant freedom we desire to extend you in this process will best be nurtured and maintained through and increased interaction between us. The freedom we envision would include choosing your staff, and setting your policies appropriate for your congregation. We would welcome your pastor to be a part of our staff, and to attend our staff and elder meetings as an important aspect of our ongoing fellowship.”

o“Finally, there are many Chinese congregations in the Evangelical Free Church already with whom you could fellowship and engage in mutual dialogue. Uh, please visit, it’s the Association of North American Chinese Evangelical Free Churches.”

o“Um, you could of course continue to fellowship with your organization of Chinese churches you are currently involved with here as well.”

First Chinese Pastor HiringoSpeaking Chinese

oAnd so I think that was the significant point at which then discussion moved and, then, uh… to the hiring of pastor John, the search for him… and um, let me see the dates on some of that, that actually occurred in late 2008, the search, and then he was hiring in March of 2009.

§But there was no pushback from it, everybody was eager to do it.

§It was just a question of could we afford it and we decided we could, and we must, and so we set up a search committee to look for a pastor, interviewed several candidates, and hired John Nie as the first Chinese pastor.

Seek Unity and Pursue it

oI don’t think we’ve ever had any friction with any of our church plans, but, it is a challenge to maintain, uh, appropriate levels of interaction and fellowship. Especially for those congregations that are off-site, uh, you have to work to continue to do things together and have support for one another.

oOne of the ways we do that is through our pastoral cluster where the pastors of all the Free Churches in area get together on a monthly basis for several hours to pray for one another.

oBut the congregations aren’t there and so it’s a little more difficult.

oAnd we have found that over the years these churches become autonomous churches, they are doing their own ministry, and we rarely get together to do things together.

oNow the Chinese congregation is a little bit different, one of the major ways which has helped us maintain contact and interaction and fellowship.

oThe children of our Chinese congregation go our English Sunday schools and so their families are interacting, uh, the children are interacting with our children and the families interact through that means.

oNow, of course, we’re all in the same building together so we rub shoulders in the, uh, courtyard having coffee and donuts and… but we still have to work at it.

oI don’t think the challenge is friction, I think the challenge is, “How do we interact better.”

oThere are a few of our people who have attended the Chinese congregation from time to time and of course some of the Chinese people attend our worship service, so there’s some interaction there.

oI wouldn’t say we have not done a great job of mixing our congregations, uh, once in a while when pastor Nie was out of town, the Chinese congregation would attend our services and we’ve had some special services together… but it’s not easy to mix when language is a barrier. And we probably need to work harder at that.

Multiply

oWell, because we believe that we should multiply healthy churches to all nations, um, that’s when that discussion moved from just being a host to a fellowship. Uh, to being an official part of First Evangelical Free Church.

Open Hands, Open Hearts

oUm, on one hand I see a benefit as, um, we’re brothers and sisters in Christ again. Diversity in the body of Christ, just different backgrounds and perspectives on, you know, what led you to come to Christ and, the Holy Spirit does His work… where you grew up he does it. Where I grew up, you know, you were overseas and I was in Nebraska (chuckles). As the same work of the Holy Spirit, join us into the body of Christ and if there are ways that we can, in our facility and in our time and in our budget, help the gospel to grow deep and to grow wide, um, God has given us this unique opportunity, um, because a long history of Chinese fellowship here in the church and, um, Chinese people coming for, you know, engineering, there’s a lot of engineering, through WSU, that’s both professors and students. Our location close to the University, I mean we’re thinking the same thing with, uh, the Arabic church. A lot of the Arabic families are this side of town, location. Um, so we just will never know the impact of the kingdom that open hands, open heart, presents.

God’s ways and thoughts, higher than ours

oIt was, it’s not like we went out to say, “Oh, we want to have a Chinese congregation or we want to have…”

oBut I think it was just in God’s providence that, uh, those early Chinese couples, I mean early in sense, early in the history of the church, um, became a part of that and… um… God blessed that far beyond any intentional thought.

Growing Deep, Growing Wide

oUh, we want the gospel to grow deeply in our and spread widely to all peoples. That includes people that God brings to Wichita as well as people that we go to overseas.

oUh, missions has always been a core value at First Free. Uh, sometimes, that has been primarily with people groups overseas, but we have tried to respond to the people groups that God has brought to Wichita as well.

oI think our elder board has always had the attitude that we shouldn’t ask God to support what we want to do but we should get on board with what God is doing. And the fact that he had brought all these Chinese people to our Church cause us to respond, uh, we need to provide the best possible edification and support for this group.

oWe did the same thing with the Spanish people attending our congregation and we helped start Genesis, which is a Spanish speaking church.

oThey didn’t meet here at our church, we provided another opportunity closer to where they live but we would have been glad to have them worship here at our facility. But they needed a Spanish speaking pastor and so we hired Abdelle Gonzales to… actually his father pastored that church first and then Abdelle has pastored it in the last few years.

oSo, um, I think we just try to respond to what God is doing in our midst.

Challenge and Grace

oWhen you plant churches there are challenges to that. For example, you lose leadership that is part of your own congregation to help start the new congregation.

oYou lose financial resources. When we planted East Evangelical Church in southeast Wichita, we lost over half of our elder board to that congregation. And a number of other leaders, the chairman of our church went to the baby church. We lost about 115 regular members and a good part of our financial base.

oBut what we discovered through the years is that a year later, after a new congregation is founded, our attendance was actually up every time and the giving was up.

oSo even though we had given away important resources, God had filled the gap and provided for us.

oNow, the Chinese congregation is a bit different because they weren’t leaving us, they were remaining here. We still had fellowship, we had some resources, the Chinese congregation provided some Sunday school teachers, and, uh, their giving went into the uh… resources of the church and then the church provided their expenses… so it was a little so it was a little bit different with the Chinese Congregation.

oBut there are always challenges. I never felt the challenges were serious. I’ve felt God honored our desire to plant new congregations and the cost of doing that was always worth it.

God is the provider

oThe challenges of losing leadership were overcome because God would bring other people to take their place; or there were individuals in the congregation who had the gifts to fill those slots that weren’t using their gifts.

oSo, it actually helped get people involved who were sitting on the sidelines. Uh, God seemed to just fill the vacancies with very effective servants.

oAnd I remember so many times when, uh, God would just provide the right person at the right time.

oWe spent a lot of money establishing these other churches. For example, when we founded West Evangelical Free Church in 1978, we gave them 8 acres on Maize road, a major street, and gave it to them debt free.

oWhen we established East Church in southeast Wichita in 1981, we gave them 12 acres, debt free, all paid for. We also guaranteed the pastor’s salary for a year and we provided startup funds for these churches.

oSo it was a major investment, but we didn’t miss the money. People stepped up to the plate and provided the funds. And, as I said, the next year our giving was up from what it had been. So God was faithful in every situation.

oWe never had any push back from any of our church plants. Uh, every single one of them was a spontaneous effort that the congregation fully supported. I don’t recall anyone objecting to any of the church plants that we did.

Chinese Title

§Speaking Chinese

Blessing and Encouragement

oGod has given us a wonderful facility here at First Free. We have two auditoriums… the sanctuary that the English congregation meets in and then a wonderful chapel that seats about 350 people where the Chinese church meets.

oAnd, using both of those facilities every Sunday is a major blessing, I think. And uh, if we weren’t using that, it would be sad to have that facility just sitting empty. And so, I think it’s a… it’s a blessing to us, to have our facility being used faithfully and fully.

oI would encourage our English-speaking congregation to cherish the Chinese congregation because they are reaching out to people in our city, particularly students, at WSU that it would be more difficult for us to reach.

oSo they are doing missions outreach for us and we should be welcoming them at every opportunity.

oI would offer my blessing to the Chinese congregation. I think Pastor John Nie did a wonderful job, particularly in his outreach to the students at WSU. He was so faithful in going to them, providing, uh, lodging for them before they would get into the dormitories, providing food… the Chinese congregation, of course, loves food and they regularly have meals that they invite some of us to attend and that’s a real blessing.

oBut I… I am very grateful for the work that John Nie did and now with, with um… Tastor Tien coming in his place, I see an even stronger possibility of connection because Daniel speaks English better than John did and he’s so outgoing that I think the future looks really bright for our two congregations.

oAnd I would encourage everybody to work at developing that fellowship further.

1.1. 威啟逹華語教會的前身是威啟逹中文查經班.查經班是在一九八零年代初期由王文龍夫婦,及其他幾個家庭成立的.

The Wichita Chinese Church was formerly the Wichita Chinese Christian Fellowship, which was established by Richard and Anita Wong and a few other families in the 1980s.

2.3. We joined the Chinese Fellowship in 1989. It had a membership of between 15 to 25 people at that time. For Sunday services, we went to different churches, and some of us went to the First Free.

3.4. 一九九零初有兩個中國教會成立了.而查經班大部份的成員亦陸續離開而參加了這兩間教會.所以查經班在一九九八解散了.

4.1. At the beginning of 1990’s, two Chinese churches were established. Most members of the Chinese Fellowship gradually left for joining either of these churches. Because of this, the Chinese Fellowship dissolved in 1998.

In February 2006, I joined a staff meeting of the First Free because of the translation ministry. At the meeting, Pastor Mike Andrus remarked that if we were ready to have the Chinese Fellowship established into a church, the First Free would like to support us. I reported this to the coworkers board of the Chinese Fellowship and there was not a consensus at that time.

2.7. In August the same year, Pastor Phil, Caring Pastor, mentioned to me twice in his email that his dream was to recruit a Chinese pastor to minister to the brothers and sisters of the Chinese Fellowship. I raised this issue again at our coworkers meeting. We all felt that we needed a shared vision to move on and we needed to pray more for this.

4.9. In September the same year, Pastor Billy Ko visited us with his short-term missionary team. We consulted him on this issue. He knew we found it difficult to decide and suggested we could consider starting off with having a Chinese Sunday Service once a month. We started to pray for this at our Tuesday Prayer Meetings.

5.10. 我們也為此詢問其他人的意見,包括在一個教會之外的福音組.得出的反應都相當正面.

6.11. We consulted opinions of many other people including a Gospel Group outside the church. The feedback was very positive.

8.13. The coworkers were getting more and more clear of the mission and convinced that Chinese Sunday Services should be started. At the coworkers meeting in January 2007, a unanimous agreement was reached for the above and it was decided that an evaluation would be made in six months to see if our aims were attained. We were hoping to serve brothers and sisters who were unable to integrate in the American churches. We also hoped to put more emphasis on gospel work. A Preparation Committee was set up with Chris Chan, Henry Chen and myself as members.

10.15. We had meetings with Pastors Mike, Pastor Dick and Pastor Phil and talked about things such as using the chapel and our wish to remain independent. The First Free was really happy that Chinese Sunday Services would soon be started.

We started ourfirst Chinese Sunday Services on March 11, 2007. The speaker for the first service was Rev. Hsu of Tulsa Chinese Christian Church. There were more than 90 people attending this service, and the average number of people in the first six months was about 90.

1.17. 教會的同工定期和牧師長老們每月一次有溝通會議.

Our coworkers continue to meet with the pastors and elders of the First Free on a monthly basis.

Rev. Mike Andrus mentioned three possible relations of the Chinese Fellowship with the First Free. (1) The Chinese Fellowship would become a part of the First Free. (2) The Chinese Fellowship Class would become a Chinese Evangelical Free Church in the First Free and remain financially independent.(3) The Chinese Bible Class would become an independent Chinese Church using the places of the First Free to meet. Pastor Mike wished that we could become a part of the First Free, but whatever the final decision would be, they were happy to see the kingdom of God expanded and would still support the Chinese ministry

2.20. A vote was cast on February 1, 2008 at the Bible study meeting. It was passed that the Chinese Bible Class would become a part of the First Free. This decision was accepted at the Elders’ Meeting of the First Free on February 6, 2008. The meeting also endorsed to revise the church budget for year 2008 for recruiting a pastor to serve the Chinese ministry.

3.21. 零八年三月份成立尋牧委員會,包括五位華員教會成員及一位母會長老Ray Dorsett.

A pastor search committee was set up in March 2008. It consisted of Elder Ray Dorsett of the First Free and 5 members of the Chinese Church.

1.22. 尋牧過程經過一年後,在零九年三月正式聘請倪仲永牧師為本會第一任的牧師.

After one year’s search, Pastor John Ni was confirmed to be the first Pastor for the Chinese ministry in March 2009.

2.2. Pastor John started his ministry here in May 2009. He served diligently for seven years and retired in September 2016. Pastor Daniel Tien succeeded Pastor John to be the second Chinese pastor until now.

4.4. Looking back at how the Chinese Fellowship was established, how the Chinese Sunday Services were then started, how we became a part of the First Free and had our own pastors, we have witnessed the sufficient grace of God. May God teach us to be thankful and to remember and grow in His grace always.